I was telling some coworkers about my experience talking with one of the software engineers. He is a great guy, but after a few minutes he began using less words than acronyms, and showing me code that i couldn’t comprehend.

Duane (who if he wasn’t so lazy might have a website I could link to) exclaimed, “He showed you source code you didn’t want to see!? That’s technical harassment! He can’t talk to you in acronyms.You should go talk to HR right now. You’ve been technically harassed.”

Finally, some recourse we can take after talking to engineers. I am sure it would only take a few of them getting fired for technical harassment before word would spread and engineers would start using full words again, and saving the un-compiled source code for each other.

I can already see the commericals. Sleazy tv lawyers saying, “If you have been technically harassed, don’t just sit there, do something about it! Call the lawfirm of Brown and Brown!”

I am inclined to think that the freedom of information that comes with the internet and other information technologies will slowly errode authoritarian regimes, but this paper points out that the internet isn’t a raging river of information running through their countries, it runs elsewhere, and they pipe in just as much of it as they want.

I am concentrating so hard, but the servers of Netster.com haven’t burst into flame yet.

I am sure you have heard of netster.com, every time you mistype a url, there they are. Their misanthropic superhero flexing at you, taunting you. A pseudo-portal that has never had a single link clicked.

Realizing your mistake you navigate away from the demon portal only to be assailed by pop-up windows, and ever-so-polite dialogue boxes asking if you would like to install this free-software that will sell your soul to the devil as you surf.

“Chinese Hackers Go to Hell!”

The other day it was about 80 degrees and I drove past a sweaty young goth clomping down the street in boots and a heavy cape. Seeing his pain, I came up with a solution for heat-opressed goths everywhere.

I had to get a crown on a tooth. Being poor, and the holder of crappy insurance, I had to choose a silver crown instead of movie-star-white. (There was only something like a $400 difference in price). The tooth impression went to the pediatric dentistry & orthodontics lab, where who knows what they did that took two weeks, but two weeks later I went back in to get the crown cemented on.

The dentist brought out the crown to show me, and it was not I’m-poor-silver, but instead movie-star-white! My film career isn’t over! Since I had already paid for it, it was mine to keep. This is obviously a sign of a cosmic shifting of Josh-luck. I plan to sleep in this week while I wait for the $$$ to roll in.

Waiting for ReadyMade to reply to my latest letter. The letters are in chronological order, rather than the most recent first, as you are used to seeing in emails. Scroll down to see the latest salvo in my employment war.

I looked on your website and I couldn’t find the part where you offer me a job. The “Job Offer for Josh” section should have included information describing your superiority to other dumb companies, the clever people I will be working with, and an offer of monies sufficient for my survival needs.

We grew jalapenos and tomatoes in our garden this year. I was looking forward to making my own salsa, which I had done with great success last year. This year I tried out the aformentioned satanic recipe. My ears are ringing and I am still sweating. I LIKE hot food. But this was so hot it could no longer be called food. Paint remover, chemical warfare agent, magma–yes. Food? No!

Now diluted to half-strength, it has a great flavor and only makes you cry a little after each bite.

Well, we’re home from the hospital and Josh is sound asleep. Everything went well. Dr. Jackson said it turned out that he didn’t have a meniscal tear after all. It seemed like he attributed the pain mostly to how far off Josh’s knee was tracking, which left him shaking his head. It was pretty far off, apparently. I’ll attach the pictures he gave us in case you want to see (don’t worry, it’s not too gross. Not that some of you would care, but I’m just taking precautions!) So he cut a ligament on the outside of Josh’s knee with the idea that it would quit pulling the bone towards the outside and allow it to track normally. He also shaved out a bunch of scar tissue, and removed what he called a “redundancy” of tissue. Overall, it was a success.

When they let me in to see Josh he was doing pretty well (except for his extreme annoyance at the size of the tiny and short bed to which he’d been relegated). He was groggy and his knee hurt, none of which was surprising. After half an hour they gave him Demerol in his IV and some Lortab to help the pain as well, and then a few minutes later he refused the wheelchair he was offered and walked out to the car (typical Josh style). He’s supposed to keep ice on it for a while and keep it elevated for about 72 hours, but they don’t otherwise restrict his movement. I predict he’ll be e-mailing you all himself after not too long; I’m just going to let him sleep as long as he can now. He’ll be going to physical therapy starting tomorrow, and he’ll check back with Dr. Jackson on Friday to make sure he’s healing up right. But everything looks good!

Josh here,

I am feeling pretty good, though anyone who has been shot up with demoral and taken a couple of Lortabs would feel pretty good. Only thing that hurts right now is my throat. I guess they put a tube down it for anesthesia. It is actually darn sore. My knee just feels slightly achy.

I start physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. I am sure that will feel great. It wasn’t really that bad at all. The thing that bothered me the most was the super-short beds. My feet hung off and it hurt my knees (even the “good” one), and was just really uncomfortable. Actually the thing that bothered me the most must have been the oxygen mask, because the first thing I remember was a blurry guy jobbing over to me and saying, “Looks like he doesn’t like the mask!”. It took me a second to realize that I was pulling it off.

The other funny memory I have is from the pre-op. They gave me, what the anesthetist called, “happy juice”. Just a shot to make you calm while you wait. I wasn’t nervous to start with, but that stuff kept making me laugh. Adrienne and I had been watching a show about bear research the night before, and they were talking about shooting bears with tranquilizer darts. For some reason I kept picturing myself as a bear they were trying to tranquilize and it would make me laugh out load. I have no idea why it was so funny, but I just kept thinking about running down the hall yelling, “it didn’t work!” and them trying to shoot me with a dart. Yeah, I know. But at the time it was the funniest thing I had ever thought of.